Nelson: It's time for Alberta to drain the Heritage Fund

We can blame politicians all we want, but the sad truth is we have been feasting on our own good fortune for decades while blathering on about how conservative and prudent we are compared to the rest of Canada, says Chris Nelson.Larry MacDougal / The Canadian Press

Most folk don’t bother with bumper stickers, and the few that do, think “Everyone Loves a Norwegian Girl” is as risque a statement that probity allows to be plastered on their vehicles.

Not so here in Alberta. We love our bumper stickers, and we can get downright coarse in expressing our true feelings. But sometimes, a little coarseness is apt, as it was in the mid-1980s, when cars and trucks across a hurting province displayed the infamous plea, “Please God, let there be another oil boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time.”

Well, maybe the Norwegians are right not to bother, because we certainly don’t take any notice of such public outpourings and, anyhow, the descendants of the Vikings wouldn’t understand that particular message in the first place. Because they didn’t “piss it all away.” Instead, they agreed as a society that the riches an oil boom would bring should also come hand in hand with a commitment not to squander them, so that when the energy fields were drained, there would still be money left in the bank to look after future generations.

Of course, promising to do it is easy — think of Alberta’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund — but actually doing that down the years, and not being tempted to dip into the kitty when things get difficult, or when some people start whining about paying too much in tax or not getting enough in benefits, is entirely another matter.

Actually Alberta, under then Premier Peter Lougheed, was 14 years ahead of Norway in setting up that Heritage Fund for a future when black gold would not be flowing. So, how have the respective savings pots grown?

We stopped putting money in decades ago, and then started taking out the interest earned, so almost 40 years after inception, it stands at just over $17 billion.

The Norwegians didn’t do that. From the start, all political parties agreed they wouldn’t even debate such a move. Did that work? Well, today, they have almost $900 billion saved, which eventually will be partly used to ensure future generations of old folk have good pensions in retirement.

What’s more, the amount of oil extracted by the Norwegians has been dropping for years, while in Alberta, the barrels a day have increased with the rise in oilsands production.

We can blame politicians all we want, but the sad truth is we have been feasting on our own good fortune for decades while blathering on about how conservative and prudent we are compared to the rest of Canada. We wanted more services, better roads, higher-paid public servants, yet lower taxes. Not surprisingly, that’s what the people we elected provided — to hell with future rainy days, let’s make hay while the sun shines.

Well, with oil dropping into the $75 to $80 range, and with the ink of the recent raft of spending pledges from the new premier barely dry, even the most short-sighted among us can spot a few dark clouds in that once sunny sky.

Now there are rumblings of tax hikes, fee increases and, if things don’t change soon, the axe — still bearing the fingerprints of Ralph Klein and Jim Dinning — will be found in some dusty cupboard.

Meanwhile, thanks to the voodoo budgeting of the Air Redford bunch, it’s hard to even know what we owe — building stuff, which has always been one of government’s main jobs, suddenly didn’t seem to count anymore when it came to fiscal accounting.

So let’s at least be honest and put a spike through the Heritage Fund. Sell it off and pay off whatever debts we have. To pretend some day we will pour money into it again to insulate future Albertans is hypocrisy.

Pigs at the trough don’t pretend to be swans. Let’s not pretend to be Norwegian.

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